


soundly and surely alive

by what_on_io



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arthur doesn’t have TB, Caretaking, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major game spoilers, Minor Character Death(s), Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 18:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17147117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_on_io/pseuds/what_on_io
Summary: “Now,” Arthur sighs, a bone weary sound. He settles in closer to John, enough to smell the pomade in his hair and the stale perfume of day-old laundry. “Where’s hurtin’, sweetheart?”Arthur and Sadie break John out of prison, and Arthur cares a hell of a lot more than he lets on.





	soundly and surely alive

Arthur’s hands gentle on his waist is the first thing that feels real to John. Through the running and the shooting and Sadie yelling at them both to get a move on through said runnin’ and shootin’, his prison break is a blur of cornfields and blue uniforms. But then Arthur’s hands, ghosting above his hips to guide him into the boat, and there’s almost no thought to drowning as one hand grazes along a stripe of bare skin where his shirt’s ridden up.

He’s always loved Arthur’s hands. Whether those long fingers were curved around a cigarette or a pencil or tangled in his horse’s mane, they were always enough to distract John from whatever he was doing, much to Abigail’s or Dutch’s chagrin.

“Y’alright there, Marston?” Arthur asks once John is settled into his seat, already turning to fire on the approaching guards. John wants to help but he only has a pistol on him and they’re already too far from the riverbank, and he’s afraid if he tries to stand his knees will give out.

“Fine,” he croaks instead. Time enough to catalogue his wounds later, course, when they’re safely back at camp and he’s greeted with Dutch’s heavy hand on his shoulder and a warm embrace from Hosea-

Hosea. It was easy to pretend the entire bank job was a bad dream back in prison, his arms worked to the bone from plowing and his ankles rubbed raw from the shackles, the constant ache in his back enough to distract him from the sight of Hosea - the closest thing to a father John ever knew - shot dead on those cobbles. He almost yearns for the work again now, looking at Arthur’s jacket still torn at the shoulder and Sadie’s blood-spattered shirt, reminders of what he’s missed and will continue to miss for the rest of his days.

“Is everyone... everyone alive?” John asks because he needs to know, now that they’re almost to the other side of the river. While he can still hide his expression from Arthur.

“They got Lenny, in Saint Denis,” Sadie tells him, and he understands why it has to be her. He hadn’t known the kid, not really, but he liked him well enough. “We buried him with Hosea. And then that bitch Molly betrayed us to the law, so she got a bullet in the back.”

Not Abigail, then, or little Jack. Or Dutch. The relief doesn’t hit him as hard as it should. What does hit him is a spasm of pain down his spine, familiar after all these weeks but still enough to knock the wind out of him. He doubles up with it, tries to control his breaths through the sudden fiery agony so the others don’t see, but Arthur’s distracted enough that a bullet flies by too close to his ear for John’s comfort.

“M’fine, Morgan. Jus’ keep shootin’ and don’t worry about me,” John grumbles, wanting this to be over with already. The running hasn’t helped, and the unrelenting wood of the seat beneath him is doing him no favours neither.

John knows he’s weak. Knows a hanging would’ve probably been a welcome relief after another few months on the coffel while everyone else worked their fingers to stumps and their backs into humps the country over. Doesn’t mean he wants Arthur privy to it though.

Finally the boat bumps onto solid ground and Arthur straps his gun across his back, hefts himself onto dry land and takes John’s arm in another gentle grip to help him follow. Must be Arthur can sense his weakness like a bad smell, that idiot kid Marston needin’ rescuing again.

And what has John ever done for the gang, ‘cept steal Arthur’s glory for a precious few days back when he should’ve been lynched and eat their food and drag them out on wild goose chases after his sorry ass?

“I can hear you thinkin’,” Arthur says, one hand in the small of John’s back as he helps him up onto the back of Sadie’s horse. John can’t help but be sorry he isn’t riding with Arthur and a clear excuse to slide his own arms around the other man’s waist, but Sadie rides gentler and his back can do without a collision with a tree right about now.

“And here I was assumin’ you didn’t think I had the capacity,” John volleys while he moves away, lamenting the loss of contact already. His skin feels flushed underneath the grubby pyjamas he wears, shivery in all the places Arthur touched him. He settles his grip on Sadie’s horse out of politeness and startles when something heavy settles across his shoulders.

Arthur’s coat. The fine red one he bought in Saint Denis from the upmarket tailor, the one with the tear in the shoulder he hasn’t bothered to mend and the brass buttons down the front. When he catches Arthur’s eye he shrugs, angles his face away.

“Don’ want you arousing suspicion more than your face already does,” he mutters, dragging himself up into his own saddle. They set off at a steady pace, and while Arthur can’t see, John turns his nose into the fabric and inhales.

* * *

 

Dutch doesn’t clap him on the shoulder. Doesn’t welcome him home or call him _son_ or _dear boy_ like he used to, only yells at Arthur that he should’ve saved them all the trouble and left John behind bars to rot.

“There was talk of hangin’ me, Dutch!” John yells back. He remembers all too well the chafe of a noose around his twelve-year-old neck, something he isn’t likely to ever forget. Remembers the relief when the rope was shot down by this very man to keep him from choking. A bad way to go.

“I had a plan, John. The time wasn’t right,” Dutch only says, and turns away from him. John holds Abigail back and lets his gaze flicker to Arthur, glowering with suppressed rage on his other side.

“He ain’t worth it,” Arthur says. “He’s gone mad. Jus’... jus’ lie low for a while, yeah?”

“Yeah,” John echoes. Abigail presses a kiss into his neck and squeezes the fingers of his right hand once before she heads off to their tent, and John knows what it means even if some part of him resents her for it.

“You need some help gettin’ those shackles off?” Arthur asks. He knows too, of course, knows that John will nod, already three strides over to Arthur’s own lodgings, and crouch to crawl inside.

The other man follows a moment later, balancing a bowl of Pearson’s stew precariously in one hand and clutching a spoon in the other. John accepts both gratefully where he’s propped against a mound of pillows - weeks subsisting on nothing but hunks of bread and water and the stew tastes celestial.

Arthur makes deft work of the locks with a pick he produces from somewhere, one steadying hand gripping John’s bare ankle while the other carefully digs at the shackle. He’s done this before, but only once for John himself, after a narrow escape from the law after a drunken night back in Blackwater. A hotel room for the two of them, lights out, a kiss pressed to broken skin.

Now Arthur tugs the metal away and John hisses from the pain of it, teeth clamped together. The skin beneath is blistered and raw, and burns when softly grazed by the pad of Arthur’s thumb.

“I’ll get you some ointment. Wait here,” he says, gruff as ever. He reaches over to rummage in a side table, presenting John with a strong bicep in his sightline, one he wants to reach out and touch. He does, just the faintest press of fingertips, but Arthur startles anyway and looks around at him in the flickering lamplight.

“I missed you,” John whispers.

“I missed you too,” Arthur rasps. “Would’ve come sooner, if not for Dutch’s little detour.”

“Guarma, right? Sounds like paradise,” John chuckles. He doesn’t blame Arthur for taking his time. Wouldn’t have blamed him for leavin’ him there to die, much as he might’ve blamed Dutch.

“Was nothin’ of the sort,” Arthur says firmly. He produces a pot of ointment from the drawer and eases the lid off, dips thick fingers into the gloop and smooths it ever so gently over John’s injuries. “That better?”

“Yeah,” John lies through the stinging. “Thanks. I need to get out of these clothes, though. Can’t think when I last washed, neither.”

“What’s new?” Arthur laughs. A glorious sound. “I’ll fetch you something more comfortable. I suppose you won’t object to somethin’ of mine?”

“Sure.” He takes the proffered pile and divests himself of the black and white stripes, tossing the loathsome garments away and wriggling into longjohns that are too big on the legs and waist. The only time he ever welcomes drowning is in Arthur’s clothes. Washing can wait.

“Now,” Arthur sighs, a bone weary sound. He settles in closer to John, enough to smell the pomade in his hair and the stale perfume of day-old laundry. “Where’s hurtin’, sweetheart?”

“Huh? Nowhere,” John says too quick. He tries not to let on that the endearment has floored him. “I told ya, I’m fine.”

“You ain’t never been a good liar, Marston. You’re prob’ly aching all over, but if you show me where it’s worst I can try and help.”

It’s so earnest John can’t help but relent. He rolls his shoulders, trying to pinpoint the worst of the ache, feels pinpricks of it settle down his spine and the backs of his calves. “Back,” he admits. “Legs. Shoulders, I think.”

“Alright,” Arthur grunts. Lays John out flat on his stomach with careful hands and starts a fluttering, hesitant massage in the centre of his back, touch growing with confidence as he moves up to the crest of his shoulders and down, down to his thighs and the backs of his knees to make John squirm.

“Thank you,” John murmurs when it’s over, not meaning the massage.

“It’s no trouble, sweetheart.” The words are barely more than a huff of breath over John’s exposed neck.

“The hot air balloon said otherwise,” he replies, shaking his head at the memory. “I mean it, though, Arthur. Most wouldn’t have come.”

“I wouldn’t have left you,” Arthur tells him firmly, and whether it’s true or not John doesn’t care, only cares about the hot breath over by his ear and the thrum of their shared heartbeats. “Anyway, Abigail insisted.”

It’s a joke, sort of. Doesn’t make either of them laugh, though. Only Abigail - now maybe Sadie too - knows the truth. She might gripe about covering for him but she never means it, doesn’t complain too much when John sneaks away at night, craving the brusque affection of Arthur’s touch.

John has always been a weak man.

Although - maybe not, with the way Arthur’s watching him now, without extinguishing the light like he usually does, with how _sweetheart_ rolls so easy off his tongue. The way he presses a feather-light kiss John can only call reverent to his throat as he flips over, loose-limbed from being worked over by agile fingers, one hand going to smooth back the long strands of John’s hair from his face.

“I’m glad we found you in time,” he tells John’s skin. “Don’t know what I’d do if I lost you too.”

“You ain’t gonna lose me,” John tells him. He scrambles a little to draw the blanket over the both of them, for once not caring that Micah or Bill will probably notice their sleeping arrangements and give them hell come morning. “I’m right here.”

“We gotta get out of here,” Arthur says quietly. “‘Fore it all goes to shit. Dutch... isn’t himself. Not since Hosea. Maybe not for a long time.”

“And the others? Abigail? Jack? Sadie? Charles?”

“We’ll rally the troops. Make our escape. We’ll be okay.” There’s a long silence while they lie beside each other on the bedroll, one of Arthur’s strong arms around John’s back. “For now, though, you should get some sleep. Can’t imagine you managed much locked up.”

“No,” John admits, remembering the clatter of the other inmates, his cellmate’s booming snores and the bang of batons against the bars at some ungodly hour of the morning. “G’night, Arthur.”

“G’night, John.” Another press of lips to his temple this time, and Arthur turns out the lamp, cradling John safe in the crook of his arms, still aching with residual cramps and stomach yearning for a second bowl of stew, but soundly and surely alive.

**Author's Note:**

> TB? Who’s she?
> 
> Come bother me on tumblr (what-on-io). I take prompts!


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